Branding Essentials

Covers blogging and content strategy to help you write blog posts designed to reach your audience, get attention and passed on to others.

You need great content to grow your business. This great content should be created by great writers who know how to get the great results you demand for your investment. But finding expert writers and managing the workflow takes a lot of time and experience. Until now! Join host Byron White, founder of WriterAccess.com, a new service of ideaLaunch that offers direct connection to thousands of U.S.-based writers available for paid assignments created to your specification. Byron will discuss how to select and manage freelance writers, and how to create assignment specifications and instructions for success. Both writers and clients will learn lessons we learned in the development of WriterAccess and from observations on the tens of thousands of content assignments completed at WriterAccess.com. Best of all, Byron will discuss the newly launched “project complexity” pricing option now available on WriterAccess, which offers an elevated “fair price” scale for complex projects demanding higher skills and experience for the high quality content you demand. In this webinar you'll learn: How to price writing assignments How to price yourself as a writer Selecting the best writers Selecting the best clients How and why to reject work from writers Why rejection of your work is a good thing Writer skill levels evaluation and guide Tracking content performance

Buyer personas are NOT customer profiles or customer demographics. Use buyer personas when creating posts, landing pages, ebooks, and social media.

Personal branding is the process of marketing oneself to others by communicating one's excellence. It involves defining who you are, what you do, and why you are unique. Developing a personal brand involves establishing an online and social media presence, networking, partnering with training organizations, speaking for free to gain experience and exposure, writing an e-book, engaging with media, volunteering or sponsoring charities, and getting recognized with awards to develop a consistent brand identity over time. The goal is to position oneself as a thought leader and have others do marketing through word-of-mouth.

This document outlines Sanjay Mehta's perspectives on differentiated strategies for marketing and communications in changing times. It discusses the challenges of traditional marketing approaches and argues that marketers need to shift from "talking down" to customers to "listening up" through genuine dialogue. The role of the marketer is changing to focus on relationship building throughout the customer lifecycle from consideration to advocacy. Effective communication now requires detailed planning and producing large volumes of consistent, audience-focused content across multiple digital platforms.

How do you create content that will engage and connect with readers? Byron's offers 30 tips that will help you find and manage the great writers you need to achieve top listings in the search engines.

Audience analysis is the process of understanding the characteristics and needs of the intended recipients of a communication. It benefits communicators by allowing them to tailor the content, style, format and tone of their message to best meet the needs and expectations of their audience. The document describes different methods for conducting an audience analysis, including using the AUDIENCE framework or creating an audience analysis grid to identify the primary and secondary audiences, their expertise, needs and the context in which they will receive the information. Conducting an audience analysis helps ensure communicators provide the right information to the right audience in the right way.

This document provides guidance for startups on using social media to build tribes and movements around their products. It emphasizes that people are drawn to belonging, leaders, and new ideas. To build a tribe, startups should determine their target market, authentically share their passion and beliefs, and create ways for the tribe to communicate both internally and externally. By empowering the tribe to spread ideas on their own, startups can create movements where peer support leads to viral growth. The document outlines specific steps startups should take, such as publishing a manifesto, making it easy for followers to connect, tracking progress publicly, and listening to feedback to iteratively improve.

The document provides guidance on making ideas stick through simple, memorable messaging. It discusses focusing on the core idea and compact delivery. Unexpected elements can grab attention if they surprise without losing the connection to the core. Concrete language uses specifics, names and examples to make abstract concepts tangible. Credibility comes from authority, testimonials and compelling details. Emotional appeals tap into what people care about. Stories engage audiences and help them visualize ideas.

An audience-centric approach to marketing communications and campaigns is important. This deck looks at the lessons of Clay Shirky's Here Comes Everybody, The Open Brand and the Cluetrain Manifesto and how understanding your audience is the first part of building a marketing message. A 7-Sentence Framework for marketing planning is introduced.

This document discusses using Pinterest for business purposes. It begins with an overview of Pinterest demographics, noting that it has over 110 million active users, most of whom are women. It then discusses research on Pinterest users and their behaviors, such as being inspired to try new things and take action based on content. The document outlines several case studies of companies that have successfully used Pinterest for marketing. It concludes by providing a seven-step strategy for businesses to use Pinterest, including developing a content strategy, building engagement, and creating a sales funnel.

Fantastic journey into the soul (and science) of amazing business communications. 1st of a 3-part PPT for professionals, students, business owners, and leaders across industries and at every stage of the organization's life cycle. Elevates communication to an art form and breaks it down to a science.

This document provides a StrengthsFinder report for an individual named Ryan Roberts. The report details Ryan's top 5 themes: Ideation, Individualization, Input, Connectedness, and Empathy. For each theme, it provides a shared theme description, personalized strengths insights specific to Ryan, and questions for Ryan to consider to increase awareness of his talents and how to apply them. The report is intended to help Ryan understand his unique talents and strengths and provide ideas for how he can use this understanding to add value in his role, team, workgroup, department, division, and organization. It also includes specific action items Ryan can take to apply each of his top 5 themes in the next 30 days.

How to develop a great content strategy across all your social networks to optimize SEO, spark conversations, and ignite engagement.

A summary of the key differences between journalists and bloggers. What travellers are looking at getting from a blog. Why brands should work with blogs. This was prepared for a cruise industry roundtable discussion on the topics

The document provides an overview of key marketing strategies for growing a business. It discusses identifying the target customer and their needs, creating an effective message, and ensuring the message is heard through various marketing channels. It emphasizes the importance of having a clear and concise message focused on the primary customer need. It also discusses building a great website that is easy to use and responsive across devices, as well as the importance of an integrated social media strategy to promote content and engage customers. Monitoring and managing online reviews is also highlighted as important for businesses' online reputation.

This document discusses the importance of understanding audiences and using storytelling in PR media production. It emphasizes developing buyer personas through profiling goals, problems, media habits, and interests. Stories humanize brands by creating emotional connections with customers. The document provides questions to help companies identify their own stories about how they started, overcame challenges, helped customers, and supported charitable causes. Telling authentic stories through text, pictures and videos can build word of mouth by inspiring passionate customers and fans to share their experiences.

This document contains notes from a presentation on influencing skills for special librarians given by Stephen Abram. Some of the key points discussed include defining advocacy, marketing, and public relations. It also discusses how to identify stakeholders and craft messages tailored to different audiences. Additional topics covered are communication strategies like telling stories, seeking attention, and using metrics to demonstrate value. The presentation emphasizes the importance of planning advocacy activities and understanding the viewpoints of those being influenced.

The document discusses digital copywriting and provides tips for writing effective digital content. It notes that digital copywriting is different than traditional print copywriting and involves tailoring content for different online contexts. It emphasizes researching the target audience through creating detailed personas and writing with an audience of one in mind. The document also discusses using storytelling techniques and establishing a clear tone of voice aligned with the brand. It highlights the importance of digital content being results-driven by focusing on business goals and key performance indicators.

This "brand 101″ session is designed to help nonprofit leadership and board members understand the basic concepts around developing and maintaining a strong brand.

This is class material from the 3rd session about understanding the importance of audience and storytelling, for KKI UI.

The first document summarizes tips for concise communication, including telling stories, making every word count, considering your target audience, and keeping things simple. The second discusses measuring social media engagement and ROI by focusing on business objectives and tying social media to other initiatives. The third discusses how to handle detractors who post negative comments and how far to let criticism go before intervening.

This document discusses the importance of understanding audiences and using storytelling in PR media production. It emphasizes developing buyer personas to understand customer needs and profiling personas by considering their goals, problems, media habits, and interests. The document advocates telling authentic stories about a company's origins, customers, employees, and values to humanize the brand and build emotional connections with audiences. It provides examples of how companies like Chase and Blue Bird Group use stories to inspire customers and build word-of-mouth promotion through social media and offline materials.

Had a wonderful conversation with students from Ringling College of Art & Design. What is, and what isn't, content, tips on strategy and creation, and how social media marketing works (and how it doesn't).

This presentation provides advice in the art of grant writing. This advice represents an accumulation of knowledge from experienced grant writers, development officers, foundations, reviewers, and program managers along the way. Be it for a nonprofit or an academic setting, this information will prove useful.

The document discusses better marketing strategies that can lead to increased sales. It emphasizes understanding your target audiences and their needs and preferences for communication. Marketing should clearly communicate the benefits of products and services from the customer's perspective using a consistent brand identity across all channels. An effective brand tells a story that provides value for potential customers as they do more research online before making purchasing decisions. The presentation encourages businesses to focus on helping customers through relevant content across online and offline platforms to build trust and make customers for life.

This document discusses using social media to tell stories that engage target audiences in workforce development. It emphasizes listening to audiences, creating content that fulfills their needs and makes them feel positive emotions, and delivering stories through the right platforms. Examples of story frames that could help audiences include "We are a tribe" to build community, "Solve my problem" to provide value, and "Make me a hero" to inspire. The document also provides tips on using tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and video to share visual and engaging stories. It stresses testing different approaches and refining based on metrics.

Stephen Abram gave a presentation to the Los Angeles Public Library about expectations for libraries. He emphasized that libraries should stop defending themselves and focus on innovation using technology as a tool. Abram also stressed the importance of understanding user needs, behaviors, and the difference between search and discovery. He suggested that libraries tell their own stories from the user perspective and focus on measuring their value and impact rather than just statistics.

Personal branding involves crafting a public image that represents your core values and competencies. It includes defining your identity, developing your image, and communicating consistently. Effective personal branding tells a clear story about who you are and what you offer through visible actions and interactions. Maintaining a personal brand over the long term requires ongoing self-reflection, relationship-building, and communication tailored to your target audiences.

A presentation given to Non-Profit marketing managers about marketing strategy. Including developing a marketing communications plan and brand.

You’ve no doubt noticed that we’re slowly drowning beneath an ocean of content. Before long, our little world of words and pictures will be so flood bound, it’ll make Tuvalu look like Mt Everest. That creates a huge challenge for communicators. How do you produce the stories that will float to the surface… that will engage and inspire people to belief, action and results? Thankfully, there’s something working in your favour. You see, almost every business, brand, project or team is loaded with stories that could help and inspire others. You’ve just got to know how to tell them…

This document discusses storytelling and its importance. It notes that storytelling is how humans make sense of their experiences and that people spend much of their time engaged with stories. Storytelling can help distill information and make it more understandable and memorable. Stories involve characters, objectives, obstacles, and resolutions. They follow classic story structures and tap into human cognitive and emotional responses. The document then provides tips on finding and crafting stories, including conducting research, gaining user insights, and developing characters, plots, and narrative arcs.

This "brand 101" session is designed to help nonprofit leadership and board members understand the basic concepts around developing and maintaining a strong brand.

Thank you to all attendees at the World Economic Forum Family Business Owners Event in Gstaad last week who participated in our Communications Workshop on Effective Communications with stakeholders - a big challenge for some family-owned business. Special thanks to @grietaeerts for the invitation to host the session and my colleague and friend @ruthyearley for her strategic planning brilliance. If you'd like to know more on stakeholder communications, get in touch!

Thanks to the World Economic Forum and members of its Family Business Community for their great enthusiasm taking part in Ketchum's facilitated workshop in Gstaad in June 2018. Slides are here. If you're interested to understand who your key stakeholders are and how to communicate with the challenging ones, then get in touch with us!

innovation is not about crafting anything new, it is about doing the same thing differently for better results. Dennis Thomas Lukaaya

With a few short months left in the year, it’s time to tackle the challenging task of planning and budgeting for your 2014 digital marketing activities. eMarketer estimates that B2C and B2B companies will see a 9.9% and 11.1% growth in digital advertising budgets in 2014, respectively. How is your company planning on establishing online marketing goals and budgets for your business and mapping both strategy and tactics to these objectives and resources? In this seminar, Formic Media will cover digital marketing planning and budgeting best practices, trends for 2014 and how to incorporate your key decision makers and digital agency into the process of creating an effective digital marketing strategy.

Formic Media, a digital marketing agency focusing on Local SEO marketing tactics for small-medium sized business and multi-location retailers, offers up a number of SEO stats and tactics to help ensure your business is able to begin the trek to achieving top local search engine rankings.

If you own or operate a local brick and mortar business, or have a business with multiple locations learn how to grow your business via local search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. This two-hour seminar will help attendees learn how to increase their business’ visibility within the local search results by utilizing specific tactics that directly affect how Google “views” your business. This seminar will provide insights into how to claim/verify your listing, how to optimize your Google+Local page, how to choose the right categories, tactics for obtaining customer reviews & citations. Finally, this presentation will discuss the changes that Google+Local and Smartphone use has brought to the Local SEO landscape.

Mobile usage continues to grow at an exponential pace, with innovation coming at breakneck speeds. Smartphones account for 58% of the U.S. cell phone market share, and 50% of searches conducted on those smartphones have local intent. This means that optimizing and engaging local customers proactively through mobile has become a necessity not a luxury. The Formic team outlines how all of this comes together: the growth of the mobile devices, best practices for optimizing your website for mobile, local & mobile advertising tactics, local-social opportunities and what’s on the horizon.

Online reputation management (ORM) is a necessity for your business and in some cases for yourself. Smartphone use has rapidly grown and consumers everywhere are now seconds away from discovering what everyone thinks about your business. Unfortunately, this means that a low number of reviews or the presence of vocal and disgruntled customers can instantly impact the perception of your business in a negative way, taking away immeasurable sales or leads. Learn about the various measures that can be taken to prevent injury and what a business can do to recover.

John McPhee, VP of Formic Media, presents Facebook and Twitter marketing strategies to help obtain more fans, followers, engagement and online visibility. Additionally, McPhee also shares social media and reporting tools.

John McPhee, Vice President of Formic Media, presents SEO best practices at the January 2013 SEMpdx event in Portland, OR. McPhee discusses on-site SEO, as well as off-site SEO, tactics to help increase organic rankings.

Is your company tracking your digital marketing efforts through a web analytics platform like Google Analytics? If not, you may be wasting your time because you have no idea which strategies are driving traffic and converting visitors to leads or sales. If you are utilizing Google Analytics, what metrics are you looking at to determine campaign effectiveness? This presentation provides a Google Analytics overview, as well as digging into the rich reporting features offered by Google’s free analytics platform. Formic also shares our favorite free SEM tools of the trade with you. Learn how to use Google Analytics and other SEM tools to measure your efforts, gain competitive intelligence and better understand what online success looks like.

Social media has grown and evolved tremendously over the past few years. Facebook is reporting over 900 million users, Twitter has said there are 250 million tweets per day, which breaks down to roughly 2,900 per second. With that growth, social advertising on social media sites has gained wide spread popularity and usage, allowing advertisers to tap into the social and interest graphs of consumers when delivering ads. Facebook as an example enables advertisers to reach more than 900 million people with ads that are relevant, engaging and have social context. So, as a business, how are you taking advantage of social advertising tactics to help extend your brand, build engagement and generate ROI? Attend Formic Media’s Free Seminar Series to learn how social advertising on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms can help elevate your small business online.

WordPress is one of the most widely used open-source content management systems for websites and blogs. The reason for this is due to its out of the box simplicity, usability and SEO-friendliness. This presentation covers the ins and outs of WordPress installation and set-up and the value the platform can provide small business owners, online marketers and webmasters.

The Advanced Social Media Marketing presentation covers advanced social media tactics and strategies for online marketers and small business owners. Learn how social advertising and platforms like Pinterest, Tumblr and more can help elevate your business online.

Formic Media provides stats and an overview of basic social media sites, and they're individual components. This is an excellent overview for those interested in learning more about social media. This is intended for beginners/novices to social media.